Hear the best music yet from a maestro brain

Jessica Hamzelou, reporter

Ever wondered what your brain sounds like? Now you can hear the sweet melody of the mind by listening to sound composed from an analysis of brain activity. We?ll leave it up to you to decide whether to add it to any playlist.

Neuronal activity can be measured using functional MRI - a scan that monitors the flow of oxygen-rich blood in the brain. A few years ago, philosopher Dan Lloyd at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, developed software that turned fMRI readings into music. In his model, Lloyd assigned different pitches to brain regions that were active together, while the intensity of activity in each region controlled the volume.

Around the same time, Jing Lu?s team at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China attempted to make music using brain activity recorded by EEG, another type of brain scan that uses electrodes placed on the scalp to monitor brainwaves. Here are some examples of what they make using this technique:

Now, Lu?s team is using both EEG and fMRI to create what they think better resembles music that is composed traditionally.

Lu?s software converts an EEG signal into pitch, while the intensity of each note is defined by an fMRI signal. Defining pitch and intensity from two different datasets makes more sense, the team say, because the two factors should not be mutually related in music. The resulting melody sounds closer to conventionally composed music than previous attempts, they say. What do you think?

?Music as an artistic expression may represent the human mind or mood,? says Lu. His team hope that a person?s brain music might be useful in biofeedback therapy, in which a person learns to control their own brain activity.

Journal reference: PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049773

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/259bacde/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cculturelab0C20A120C110Cbrain0Emusic0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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